BUILDING CODE IN BROWARD QUESTIONED OFFICIALS SAY ENFORCEMENT IN MUNICIPALITIES IS LAX

The roof over Joe Muller's $85,000 home in Sunrise was trouble from the moment it was built.

Supports zig-zagged across the spine of the roof, rather than in one sturdy, straight line. Gaps in the plywood, hidden by shingles, allowed water to seep through and caused the roof to rot.

Muller replaced the roof for $5,000 in 1985, six years after it was built. "In God's name, where were the inspectors?" he said.

Many South Florida building officials are asking the same question in the wake of Hurricane Andrew's destruction.

"In a lot of the cities all over the county, there were a lot of 'good old boy' type inspectors who had been around for many years," said Will Willis, assistant chief building official for Pompano Beach. "They were just interested in putting in their eight hours and that was it."

Nobody knows how much sub-par construction exists in Broward and Palm Beach counties, but officials think many such flaws would come to light if a hurricane hit the area directly.

"We will never really know how good or bad it was until we have a hurricane," said Don Levy, the head of the Sunrise Building Department.

Inspectors in Broward missed violations of the South Florida Building Code in an average of 5.3 percent of the inspections reviewed between 1986 and July, Broward County Board of Rules and Appeals records show.

The board reviews the work of building inspectors and resolves disputes over whether structures meet code. When it finds code violations, builders are ordered to fix them.

The agency has found that inspectors in a few cities -- Hollywood and Pompano Beach, for instance -- have made mistakes 10 to 15 percent of the time.

Though Broward County attempts to spot-check inspections, Palm Beach County does not. Officials there acknowledge that the quality of building inspections varies widely from city to city and that no one can say for sure which departments are good or bad.

In Dade County, officials are reviewing inspections procedures in the face of mounting evidence that shoddy construction was a major reason that so many homes failed.

Even with inspectors tracking other inspectors in Broward, the chances of finding mistakes are minimal. Broward's oversight board has only one person for each of the five major construction disciplines -- structural, mechanical, plumbing, electrical and fire.

"You got one man checking this entire county? That's like spitting in the ocean," said William "Rusty" Carroll III, the board's assistant administrative director.